A Graceful Entrance

First, there's the understated ease of the restaurant's
décor: sofa by the window, bamboo bar, walls painted a color
called "celery ice." Next is the well-tuned staff: friendly greeting,
water poured, wine chilled. Then comes the melt-in-your-mouth surprise:
perfect brioche, served with extra butter.

Are we having fun yet? You bet, and all this happens before ordering
dinner at Ben Vaughn's new restaurant Grace, which opened
September 18th next to Burke's Book Store in Cooper-Young.

Vaughn, the former chef at River Oaks in East Memphis, named Grace
after his daughter, but the ambience is uniquely his own.

"I wanted the kind of restaurant where I would go for lunch or
dinner to eat and chill: laid-back Southern charm, a fun place with
good food that is seasonal and locally sourced," Vaughn said.

Building menus around local food is a mission Vaughn takes
seriously. Seafood comes from the Alabama gulf coast, by way of
Paradise Seafood (spiny lobsters one weekend, snapper and Apalachicola
oysters the next) and produce and cheese are purchased from local
farmers.

"I talk to Lori Greene [Downing Hollow Farm] in the morning, see
what she's got, and go from there," Vaughn said. "The first week, I
changed the menu three times."

So how does Vaughn's culinary flexibility translate into lunch
(served weekdays) and dinner (served Monday through Saturday)? On a
recent Friday evening, the menu offered six small plates, priced from
$8 to $11. We ordered a B.L.T. salad (local greens, applewood smoked
bacon, heirloom tomatoes, blue cheese) and fried green tomatoes stuffed
with goat cheese. (Confession: The tomatoes were so memorable, I
dreamed about them that night.)

For entrées, we went with seared big-eye tuna ($26) and the
pan crisp scallops ($23). We were tempted to order a poached pear with
pecan baklava for dessert, but we couldn't eat another bite. Blame the
brioche.

"It takes two days to make them," Vaughn said, crediting pastry chef
Chris Burbeck. "There's so much butter that it has to rest at a cold
temperature for an entire day to set the dough."

For now, there is no cork fee to bring wine because the restaurant
is waiting on its liquor license. Once in place, the wine list will
include about 50 choices — mostly small production labels —
including half-bottles and wines poured by the glass.

With only 16 tables, reservations are recommended. Or stop by
spontaneously and sit at the bar, where you can watch the kitchen at
work through a large glass door.

Grace, 938 S. Cooper (274-8511)

Need an impressive Saturday-night date without breaking the bank?
Try a lobster dinner at Sole Restaurant & Raw Bar, where
boiled Maine lobster comes with corn fritters, almond slaw, and lobster
bisque for under $30. The special, offered only on Saturday nights,
runs through the month of October.

"We had an amazing turnout last week and sold every lobster we had,"
executive chef Matthew Crone said. "We try to accommodate
everyone, but we can only order so many."

If the lobsters sell out, the restaurant serves lots of other
seafood, including nine different types of oysters and entrées
like striped bass with roasted baby turnips, watercress, fried capers,
and saffron aioli.

Lucchesi's Ravioli and Pasta Company, the popular Italian
deli and market in East Memphis, has added two organic pasta sauces to
their list of take-home foods in response to customer requests.

"The recipes are the same as our regular sauces, but they are made
with all organic ingredients," Alyce Mantia said. "Even the
olive oil is organic. If this works, we're going to try using organic
meat and produce for some of our filled pastas."

Priced at $4.99, the organic marinara sauce is only 50 cents more
than the original variety. Organic tomato basil sauce also is available
for $6.99.

"The tomato-basil sauce is made with eggplant and zucchini," Mantia
said. "It's a nice chunky sauce. It's my favorite."